Dubba wrote:If you're going to start mentioning people like mannaseh and Keety roots, then Russ D must surely get a mention. Has a far greater body of work than a lot of people being touted.

jb welda wrote:I think that dougie guy deserves a mention too

one lovejb

all of them mentioned above share same level of quality but can't call them "great" as striker or coxsone or jammys

roots tradition wrote:Personally don't regard Sly and Robbie as great producers (great players though) so the prize has to go to Scratch.

to me Sly and Robbie always have been in same levels of Striker Lee, Duke, Jammys, Coxsone and others all of that era. the fact alone they are still going strong is making them legendary.the Taxi catalogue is hughe and you will surely find some songs that sound funny but if you rate good music the worst S & R rhythm sounds still great if you compare it to any "modern" rhythms which actually all sounds like fruityloops (drop leaf and all the clones)and scratch didnt have 1 good production since he left Jamaica back then so Scratch dont really countactually I think Dougie and Campbell are doing better productions than scratch since he settled in swiss.

@johnnyB

well I only state what I feel, can't take that from me. and the last 10 - 14 years have been heavily influenced by Donovan and you see the outcome. The guy now trying to catch oldschool vibes because he is done with his "creativity" so he is forced to go back to ninetees again. that dont make a great producer as well. but actually I just think you dont realize what happened, maybe you are too young. no disrespect still. just reasoning

roots tradition wrote:I agree but his productions before that were legendary. As far as I know Sly and Robbie never took any of their productions to King Tubby's for mixing/voicing so for me that is what held them back.

early Scratch recordings are crucial and he is a genius there is no doubt well I believe Soljie is mostly mixing S&R and I really like this clear style of mix. King Tubby is more of raw type of mix, too different to compare. I feel that S&R are intentionally doing this and I apprecilove that because I like Tubbys mix and I like Soljie mix and also Scientist mix but all three got their own styles. Tubby is the most rated because of the futuristic type of mixing while Soljie sounds heavy and clear perfect to play on a heavy HI FI stereo with dolby surround and all that stuff, Tubbys instead is made for a dancehall type of soundsystem like its rated over here. and I feel that S&R still influence reggae music (not talking lovers rock reggae which is mistaken for roots nowadays)

jahkob wrote:did anybody actually read the first post here?

yes I did, and Donovan is a game changer I never said it no true but you can be a gamechanger if you spoil the game just the same way, everybody will remember you but not in a good way. You see Donovan now is rebuilding Sly & Robbie rhythms and started to record bands and honestly it sounds like the stuff Dean Fraser was doing for last 15 years already. This guy had a good dancehall career then he made drop leaf and was caught up in that loop for almost ten years now but Sean Paul flop, Kartel flop so he is trying go to the root where he musically never been before.

Fattis was the last gamechanger who made sense, too bad he stopped producing so early and eventually drop out physically.

capullo wrote:and who brought auto tune to the masses?

first of all it was TPain from Fla but in reggae it was Munga Honorebel and the producer was probably Truckback or some other unrelevant type of producer... maybe Left Side.. who cares lol Autotune can sound good but the way people use it it sounds like the use of digital-reverb back in 80s when it was new and they put it on snares or whole tracks like those oldschool electro sounds from Hashim or Nucleus making it unplayable nowadays (without beeing an 80's fan).

Also Dave Kelly was a great producer in the 90s but in that time there was also Steely & Clevie, Mafia & Fluxy and Sly & Robbie and Robert Livingstone doing the same and all of them had hits shaping the whole 90s reggae and even hiphop music and some of the pop-music too.

Richard Bell was also important in the 90s and early 2000s but this is related to Fattis because of the conscious style of works but thinking back to early 90s there was Music Works with Shabba who heavily changed the radioplay and I know that Gussie was the producer but to me its in most case Sly and Robbie creating all this not Gussie. or Fattis or other people who pay them to play. Actually almost every big event within the last 30 years has to do with Sly and Robbie. remember Harmony House era in late 90s /early 2000 it was Sly Dunbar playing drums and sometimes Robbie on bass.. Penthouse era sameway, Sly Dunbar along Lenky was the thing of late 90s then it was Lenky alone in 2000s with Donovan and Genius coming up and then it was the mp3 that really made the change but it build back slowly since the laws got harder for sharing and now you have the UK producers on the rise since Curtis Lynch jr got all youngstas and dub/reggae fans attention to UK reggae making possible for older producers have a shine after 2 decades of hard work.

roots tradition wrote: Sly and Robbie never took any of their productions to King Tubby's for mixing/voicing so for me that is what held them back.

it's the other way round.

They didnt want to do the same as Bunny Lee, the Hookims, Joe Gibbs, etc... when they started TAXI and wanted to have their own TAXI sound. Robbie was directing the mixes, then Sly would come to listen and have the engineer do it all over again, then they would settle on a sound and atmosphere that was theirs, and nobody else's. Over the years, they have used the services of engineers like Solgie, Bunny Tom Tom, Fatta, Bulby, Rory. They also like to be mixed by Godwin Logie and by Groucho from the UK.

Nowadays, they still operate this way on a lot of TAXI productions. In addition, Sly oversees the mix on stuff he "originates" and Robbie directs the mix on international stuff. Whatever the case is, they always make sure to retain THEIR own sound.

guillaumebougard wrote:They didnt want to do the same as Bunny Lee, the Hookims, Joe Gibbs, etc... when they started TAXI and wanted to have their own TAXI sound.

Just to set the record straight the Hookims only went to King Tubby's once and I don't think Joe Gibbs ever did. Yes TAXI had it's own sound and they are to be congratulated for that, I just think it would have been interesting to hear what they would have done in the island's best mixing studio.

Some people should be reminded that Fattis was not just all about conscious tunes or roots dancehall: his labels released lots of hardcore dancehall tunes -including a lot of minimalistic clunkers in the late 80's-early 90's, and a number of them hardly politically correct, to say the least (ask Ninjaman!). Lots of off the wall stormers as well, in a hardcore mode, and really not just stuff by Sizzla and Luciano. Also lots of romantic tunes. Fattis should be remembered for the whole spectrum of his productions, not just conscious" tunes. Sly at Fattis's, that's one of the last great winning tickets, really. If the whole output of Star Trail and XTM were to be compared, i'd say that the first one has a higher percentage of roots tunes than the latter. Of course, Fattis released more tunes than R Bell.

Necessary Mayhem tunes are really well produced, sure, but hardly ground-breaking, they mostly rely on well-tried formulas getting some 21st century treatment. A little like Mungo, i admit, in a different way. No idea why but i find the latter more enjoyable.As much as i enjoy certain styles beng revived i don't care too much about that neo-early digital thing, probably because the original genre was exploited to the fullest for a fairly lengthy period of time, producing heaps of releases.

SolarHighPower wrote:scratch didnt have 1 good production since he left Jamaica back then so Scratch dont really count

'from my secret laboratory' is a great album in my opinion.

corleon has to mention not that i like much of what he's done but his influence in jamaican music has been massive... as somebody said a great producer creates a sound you can recognize whether you like it or not, corleon has that. to me a producer is great when he has a signature sound and has success with his productions even if i don't like his music.